


I Like You A Latte (And Other Coffee-Related Puns)

by HeyAssbuttImBatman



Series: Kliego Week 2019 [5]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Coffee, Detective Diego Hargreeves, Hospitals, Kliego Week 2019, M/M, Not Adopted By Reginald AU, Veteran Klaus Hargreeves, Writer Ben Hargreeves, coffee shop meet cute, kind of, mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 03:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18885847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeyAssbuttImBatman/pseuds/HeyAssbuttImBatman
Summary: The man looks up at him with dark, distrustful eyes when Klaus stops beside his table. He looks dangerous; his mouth is pressed into a thin, flat line and there’s a scar running from his temple around to the back of his head. His hands are clutching his mug so tightly that his knuckles have nearly turned white.“Hmm,” says Klaus consideringly. “Mind if I sit here?”“Yes,” the man says. Klaus, pretending he didn’t hear that, slides into the booth across from him and blows gently on his latte.





	I Like You A Latte (And Other Coffee-Related Puns)

**Author's Note:**

> Day Five: Not Adopted By Reggie AU
> 
> Posted like two days late because I am a GREMLIN.
> 
> EDIT AS OF 05/20/2019: This fic has been beta read for typos and grammar mistakes.

Klaus wakes in the middle of the night to find Ben hovering over him worriedly, a pen tucked behind his ear and his hair sticking up all over the place. 

“Oh,” sighs Klaus. “Another nightmare?”

Ben frowns and moves back so Klaus can sit up. 

“Yeah,” he says, his tone screaming _duh!_ “You’re sweaty and shaky, dude.”

Klaus looks down at himself. “Huh,” he says. “So I am.” And his heart is racing, too, which explains the breathy quality of his voice.

With a groan, Klaus pulls himself out of bed and heads for the bathroom, Ben trailing behind him like a ghost. Klaus turns and raises an eyebrow at him. 

“You going to watch me piss?” he asks. 

Ben shrugs. “I’ve seen you going through withdrawal,” he replies. “After that, there is no such thing as privacy between us.”

“Fair enough,” Klaus says. He doesn’t actually have to pee. He splashes his face with cold water and drinks straight from the sink, and then he looks in the mirror at their reflections.

They are both frazzled and tired, with pallid skin and dark rings underneath their eyes, but while Ben’s appearance is more because he’s an author with a deadline, Klaus’s exhaustion has less innocent causes.

“We look like brothers,” Klaus gasps with false cheer. Ben rolls his eyes.

“I’m not as easy to distract as you,” he says. “Want to talk about it?”

“Talk about it?” Klaus’ voice is amused. “It’s the same thing it always is—blood, screams, gunshots like thunder. And falling in love with a ghost, of all people, only to watch him disappear into that great beyond people are always talking about.”

Damn it, he should have just kept his mouth shut; he’s always more talkative late at night. But Ben merely nods as if this is normal. Ben, Klaus remembers, has his own demons, but at least he’s found a way to make money off of his. _The next Lovecraft_ , critics call him, and Ben will make a joke about picking a better name for his cat, but the truth is that Ben’s dreams are just as haunted as Klaus’, albeit for different reasons.

Klaus tilts his face this way and that in the mirror. Leftover glitter from last night’s makeup catches the light. The bulbs in here are harsh and wash him out, make him look sickly, and with the glitter smeared across his eyelids and cheeks, he looks like a prostitute. 

Great.

“I’m going to go get a drink,” he announces suddenly. Ben blinks at him. 

“Are you really going to break your sobriety streak over one nightmare?” Ben asks, insensitive in the way that only someone who goes through the same thing can be. 

“Rude,” Klaus says lightly. “I meant coffee or something. There’s a cafe not too far from here that’s open all the time, right?”

“I’m pretty sure that cafe is run by the mafia.”

“Even better,” says Klaus. “They probably have excellent recommendations.”

Ben sighs in defeat. “Their lattes are pretty good,” he admits. Klaus claps his hands together.

“Is that an endorsement I hear?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ben shuffles back toward his bedroom, to work or to sleep or to summon eldritch creatures, or whatever it is he does at three in the morning when the rest of the world is sleeping. Klaus pauses in his own room only to grab his wallet, keys, and shoes, and then he walks out of the apartment with all the confidence that only a man wearing leather pants and a fur-trimmed pimp coat can pull off.

The cafe is only a few blocks away from the apartment building Klaus and Ben live in. The streets are practically deserted; distantly, as if echoing up from great depths, the sound of traffic and sirens and city life rises lazily into the air like smoke. In this part of the city, though, the only signs of life are the flickering neon lights of convenience stores and the flickering shadows of people slinking through the city’s alleys and dark places. A cool breeze blows by and Klaus shivers slightly, pulling the edges of his coat tighter around him. He’s relieved when the cafe comes into view. It’s cold out here, sure, but it’s also quiet. He’s only been back for a month, and he is unused to quiet, to stillness.

A bell above the door jingles merrily when he pushes open the door and steps inside. It’s warmer in here and everything is lit up a bright yellow color. After being out in the cool blue dark, the sudden change is disconcerting, but he can still see outside through the large glass windows that make up much of the walls, and it comforts him. His hands are still a bit shaky. The details of his nightmare drift just at the edges of his consciousness.

The place is nearly deserted. There’s one extremely bored cashier behind the counter, half-asleep with her head propped up on her hand, and one customer, a man dressed in all black who sits in the corner, staring into the depths of his cup as if his drink has personally offended him.

Klaus walks up to the counter and clears his throat.

“One caramel latte, please, and don’t skimp on the caramel.” He winks at her. She gives him an unimpressed look in response.

“That’ll be five fifty,” she says. Klaus fishes a few crumpled bills from the depths of his pocket and slides them across the counter to her.

“Keep the change,” he says graciously. She merely grunts and goes to make his coffee. A few moments later, steaming mug in hand, Klaus around at the empty restaurant. He looks over at the man in the corner and blinks in surprise when their gazes meet. The man looks hastily away, and Klaus hesitates for only a second before he pushes his shoulders back and strides across the cafe.

The man looks up at him with dark, distrustful eyes when Klaus stops beside his table. He looks dangerous; his mouth is pressed into a thin, flat line and there’s a scar running from his temple around to the back of his head. His hands are clutching his mug so tightly that his knuckles have nearly turned white.

“Hmm,” says Klaus consideringly. “Mind if I sit here?”

“Yes,” the man says. Klaus, pretending he didn’t hear that, slides into the booth across from him and blows gently on his latte.

“I’m Klaus,” he says. At that, the man looks at him consideringly.

“That a Polish name?” he asks.

“German, actually, or at least that’s what my social services agent told me when I was twelve.”

The man grunts and goes back to staring into his half-drunk coffee. Klaus takes a sip of his own drink, uncaring of the way it scorches his tongue, and is content to merely sit there in silence.

“Diego.”

Klaus blinks in surprise and turns back to the man across from him. “Pardon?”

“My name is Diego,” the man says, looking at Klaus as if daring him to say something about it. Klaus merely smiles and holds out a hand.

“Nice to meet you, Diego.” 

After a brief hesitation, Diego shakes his hand. He looks out the window to his left, this time, instead of down at his coffee. Klaus takes another sip of his latte. It’s quiet and still in here, too, and Klaus resists the urge to squirm, even as restlessness makes him jiggle his foot, tap his finger against his chipped ceramic mug. Somewhere on the other side of the restaurant, the woman behind the counter sighs.

Klaus looks back at Diego. He opens his mouth to say something but is interrupted when a door slams open loudly enough to make Klaus jolt and spill his latte onto the table. Diego’s head snaps up, his eyes narrowed and focused, and it makes something in Klaus stir, a headspace of deadly calm he thought he’d left behind when he was honorably discharged from the army.

A man strides into the room, short and slight and older, judging from the gray at his temples. He’s speaking in rapidfire—what language is that, Russian? He’s shouting, actually, hands waving in agitation, and the woman behind the counter has straightened up, frowning. Klaus goes pale as he takes in the scene.

Surrounding the man, wailing almost loudly enough to drown out his shouting, are more ghosts than Klaus has ever seen surrounding one civilian. In the army, it wasn’t unusual to see someone with multiple ghosts following them, especially if they were a sniper or special forces. There’s no innocent reason, however, for a civilian to have at least a dozen screaming ghosts trailing in his wake like miserable pieces of driftwood in the ballast water of an uncaring ship.

 _Fuck sobriety_ , Klaus thinks. _I should have just gone to a bar._

The man finally notices them and freezes. He lowers his voice and hisses something to the woman, then walks over to their booth, plastering a pleasant smile on his face.

“I apologize that you had to see that,” he says, his voice slightly accented. “I didn’t expect anyone to be here this late.”

“Yes, well,” says Klaus, clenching his hands around his mug to hide how they’ve started shaking again, “it’s never too early in the morning for coffee.”

The man chuckles. “True enough. Still, I don’t wish to scare away customers by arguing with my employees over coffee beans. Can I get you any pastries to go, perhaps, to make up for it?”

Klaus looks at Diego, who’s still watching the man with a calculating look on his face.

“No, thank you,” says Klaus. The ghosts are starting to notice that Klaus can see and hear them. Their wailing increases in volume and they press closer, trying to touch him, but he pushes out with his mind and forces them to keep a few feet back.

The man smiles and nods. It’s a very painted-on smile, Klaus thinks, like the very outermost of a set of Russian nesting dolls. He wonders what other depths this man has.

“I apologize for bothering you,” the man says, interrupting Klaus’ musings. “I must go now, but have a good rest of your night.”

“You, too,” Diego says, the first thing he’s said since the man walked over here. He continues to stare after the man until he walks out of the restaurant and off into the night, thankfully taking his ghosts with him. The woman hurries into a room in the back, leaving Diego and Klaus alone.

“So,” Klaus says. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

Diego looks at him with surprise that quickly turns to suspicion. “What do you mean?”

Klaus rolls his eyes. “It’s a wonder you get anything done when you’re so obvious all the time. I’m talking about all _this_.” He waves a hand to indicate Diego and the coffee and the restaurant. “Wait, let me guess. Stakeout? And what are you, then, a cop?”

Diego looks angry, but not at Klaus. More like he’s angry at himself for being found out. He reaches across the table and grabs Klaus’ wrist with one hand and pulls him out of the booth.

“Come with me,” he growls.

“My latte,” Klaus protests.

“Just bring it with you!”

Diego drags him out of the cafe and into the alley next door, pushing him into the wall and blocking his escape by standing in front of him, arms crossed and feet firmly planted on the ground. Klaus sips at his coffee.

“You know something,” Diego accuses.

“I should hope so, otherwise what were all those college classes for?” Klaus says. Diego’s lips thin.

“No,” he says. “You _know_ something about what’s going on in there.” He jerks his thumb at the cafe. “Something a civilian shouldn’t know.”

For the first time all night, annoyance curls like a tentacle around Klaus’ stomach.

“First of all, I’m not a civilian.” When Diego starts to bristle, Klaus adds, “I’m a veteran, man, I could probably kill you with my bare hands.”

“Doubt it,” Diego says under his breath, which Klaus graciously chooses to ignore.

“Secondly,” he says, “it’s not like it was hard to figure out. You looked like you were just waiting for that guy to slip up, and he—” He chokes a bit, his voice going quiet. “He had a lot of ghosts following him.”

Diego’s eyes narrow. “Do you mean that figuratively, or. . . ?”

 _In for an inch_ , Klaus thinks, and aloud, says, “I meant that literally. I can see ghosts.”

Diego blinks and tilts his head to the side, which Klaus really shouldn’t find as cute as he does, but sue him; it’s late and Diego is attractive, and Klaus hasn’t gotten laid in months.

“Are you,” Diego starts, then closes his mouth and has to start again. “Did you get taller? Because I could have sworn we were the same height.” Klaus looks down and realizes that he’s floating a few inches off the ground.

“Damn it,” he says, and forces himself to stop. He lands lightly on the balls of his feet and grins at Diego’s gobsmacked expression. “I can also levitate. Well, technically I think it’s telekinesis that I’m just using on myself, but semantics, right?”

“Huh,” Diego says. Klaus takes another sip of his coffee while he waits for Diego to articulate his thoughts. Damn, his latte is starting to get cold. “Were you one of the forty-three, by any chance?”

Klaus blinks in surprise. “As a matter of fact, I was. I was one of those unfortunate enough not to be adopted into that Umbrella Academy cult. Though I ended up in the system anyway, so I don’t see what difference it would have made to my mother to just sell me to a billionaire.”

Which, wow—that’s way more than he intended to share. He always gets like this after a nightmare, though. Bad dreams destroy his brain to mouth filter.

“Same here,” says Diego. “I mean, not the part about ending up in the system, but I was one of the forty-three who didn’t get bought, either.”

“What are the odds of us meeting up like this?” says Klaus. “What are your powers, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Diego seems to flush, though that might be a trick of the light. The only light they have to see by comes from the distant moon and a single flickering light bulb hung above a door set into the wall. “I can control the trajectory of whatever I throw,” Diego says, “and hold my breath forever.”

Which, again, _wow_. Klaus looks at Diego’s mouth. He can’t help it. _Dick-sucking lips_ , his mind unhelpfully supplies, and by the time he pulls his mind out of the gutter, Diego’s already started talking again.

“. . . not a cop, but a detective,” Diego is saying. “I can’t tell you anything about our investigation, but my partner and I were assigned a case that revolves around this cafe. You should probably stay away for the time being. In fact, you might want to stop coming here at all.”

There’s still half a mug of coffee left, but it’s gone completely cold by now. Klaus decides to bring it home with him, because it’s good coffee, and he can always just microwave it. He ducks around Diego and starts walking back to the apartment.

“No can do,” Klaus says. Diego watches him go, his arms still crossed across his chest. “Now that I know there are sexy detectives around, I have even more incentive to hang around. Besides,” he adds, “you might need help if something goes down. I’ve got powers and experience with fighting, remember.”

“I remember,” Diego says, and doesn’t seem inclined to elaborate even though there’s a frown on his face. Klaus gives him a jaunty salute, clicks his heels sharply, and marches down the sidewalk toward home.

* * *

The next night finds Klaus sitting on the cold linoleum floor of the bathroom, talking out of his ass to distract Ben as he vomits thick, black goop into the toilet. It’s one of the bad nights; the monsters inside of him are fighting even harder to get out than they normally do. When he finally finishes, Ben makes himself a cup of tea and locks himself in his bedroom. A few hours later, he shows up in Klaus’ room, feverish but proud as he presents a twelve-thousand word short story to be beta read.

The night after _that_ , Klaus goes back to the cafe.

Diego is there again, sitting in that same booth, staring into yet another mug of coffee. He looks up in surprise when Klaus slides into the booth across from him, with a cappuccino instead of a latte this time.

“‘Sup?” Klaus says. Diego snorts.

“Smooth. What are you doing back here?”

“What, can’t I want to visit my favorite detective?”

Diego hisses at him to shut up, looking over his shoulder at the woman behind the counter. She’s passed out in a swivel chair and looks as if she wouldn’t wake up for anything.

“I’m undercover,” Diego says to Klaus. “Which means you can’t talk about that shit here, got it?”

“Loud and clear,” Klaus says. He drains half of his cappuccino in one gulp, and Diego raises an eyebrow at him.

“It’s a bit late for caffeine, isn’t it?”

“Hypocritical much?” Klaus replies pointedly. Diego scowls and flushes. “And anyway, caffeine doesn’t do much for me anymore. I was addicted to _so_ many drugs when I was younger.”

Diego blinks in surprise. “Should you be telling me that?” Klaus merely looks at him blankly. “I mean, that’s kind of personal, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps, but I feel as though we know each other so well already,” Klaus says, batting his eyelashes. Diego huffs out what might be a laugh, if Klaus squints and tilts his head. “Real talk, though.”

“Like addiction isn’t real talk?”

“Point. But seriously, what are you even hoping to accomplish here? Because if there’s, like, murders going on, I’d like to know about it.”

“What part of undercover do you not understand?” Diego says. He sighs. “It might be murders, but I’m not exactly sure. That’s why I’m staking this place out.”

“And you’re hoping for what exactly?” Klaus says. “That whoever you’re after is going to waltz in and announce their evil plot to the world?”

“Yes, Klaus,” Diego says, deadpan. “That’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

* * *

Two nights later, that’s exactly what happens.

Klaus has gotten used to this little routine he and Diego are building, and he thinks Diego’s starting to actually like him, too, so of course it’s when Klaus is starting to relax that it all goes to shit.

The man who bursts into the cafe is large and tattooed and speaking in English, of all languages, and he startles the cashier out of her chair when he shouts, “The cops are onto us! We need to hide that shipment of oxy that just came in.”

Klaus is playing around with Snapchat filters and happens to catch the whole thing on video, as well as the guy’s face when he looks around and realizes that there are actually people in there.

“Ah, shit,” he says, and whips a gun out from his waistband.

“Oh, _shit!_ ” Klaus says and ducks underneath the table. Diego slides onto the floor next to him and pushes the table onto its side. The first bullet bounces off, but the second goes straight through the hard plastic and grazes Diego’s arm, making him in hiss in pain.

The man is shouting in angry Russian—or maybe Polish, now that he thinks about it—and someone else is screaming. He himself is silent except for his ragged breathing, his pounding heartbeat. He has his hands clapped over his ears, he realizes, and he forces them down.

“Call 911,” Diego says, his voice strained. He finds a butter knife on the floor and pops up from behind the table just long enough to throw it before ducking back down again. There’s a shout of pain from across the cafe and the gunshots stop, though there are still people _screaming_.

“You _are_ 911!” Klaus saves the video just in case Diego needs to use it as evidence.

“Just do it!”

Klaus huffs. “Pushy,” he says, but he dials 911 anyway. At his side, Diego is speaking in rapidfire Spanish into a cell phone.

“ _911, what’s your emergency?_ ” the emergency dispatcher says. Klaus peers out from behind the table and is relieved to see that the man and the woman have both abandoned the restaurant. That is, of course, when he realizes that they’ve merely managed to sneak around the table-barrier while Diego and Klaus were distracted.

“Oh, fuck,” he says, right before there’s an explosion of light in his eyes and pain in his head and the world goes dark.

* * *

He wakes in the hospital, which is not as uncommon an occurrence as he’d like it to be. Ben is in the chair next to the bed, fast asleep, his eyes moving around underneath the lids. He’s dreaming, but it doesn’t look to be a bad dream, so Klaus doesn’t wake him up.

Slowly, carefully, he pulls himself into a seated position. He doesn’t seem too injured, at least, but the _call nurse_ button is too far for him to reach, so he’ll have to wait until someone notices he’s awake to find out exactly what happened.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long. Diego comes in not ten minutes later, wearing a black t-shirt rather than his usual turtleneck. A white bandage just barely peeks out from underneath his sleeve and a shiny badge hangs from his neck.

“You’re awake,” Diego says when he sees Klaus sitting up. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” says Klaus. “This is worse than that time I waxed my ass with chocolate pudding.”

Diego huffs out a laugh. “Good to see that the concussion didn’t affect your personality.”

“Concussion?”

“Mm-hmm.” Diego walks over and cracks open the water bottle sitting on the bedside table, and Klaus gulps half of it down when he realizes, _wow, I’m actually really thirsty._ “You took a nasty blow to the head and were out for almost twelve hours.”

“What about the guy?” Klaus asks. “The mafia people or whoever it is that you were chasing down.”

Diego’s mouth thins in frustration. “They’re both in custody, but I didn’t have any recording devices on me, so all I can bust them for is trying to fucking shoot us. The drugs and shit?” He shakes his head.

“Oh,” says Klaus. “That reminds me. Is my phone around here?”

Diego fishes around in the bedside table and finds Klaus’ cell. It’s a bit scratched up but has some battery left, thankfully. Klaus pulls up the video from last night and shows it to Diego, watching with a smile on his face as Diego’s expression turns from confused to incredulous.

“Holy shit,” he says. “That’s exactly what we need. Klaus, you genius! Can you send me that?”

His excitement is infectious. Klaus laughs and hands Diego his phone so he can put his number in.

“I have to do something to thank you,” Diego tells him. Klaus taps his chin.

“Well,” he says. “My favorite coffee place is about to close down, it seems. Perhaps you could take me somewhere else to get a good latte.”

Diego smiles, slow and sweet.

“I can do that,” he says, his eyes soft. He hands Klaus his phone back. Their fingers brush, and neither Klaus nor Diego even pretends it was an accident. “Well,” Diego continues. “I should probably go let the doctor know you’re awake.”

“Okay,” says Klaus. “I’ll see you around, Detective Diego.”

“Oh, God, you’re going to love this,” Diego says, pausing in the doorway. “I can’t believe I never told you. My last name is Diaz.”

Klaus bursts into laughter. “Detective Diego Diaz,” he wheezes. “The stars really aligned to create that one.”

Diego chuckles. “Bye, Klaus,” he says. Klaus waves at him, still chuckling.

Ben finally stirs and lifts his head, blinking blearily.

“Oh, good, you’re up,” he says when he sees Klaus. “What’s with all the noise?”

“I, my dear Benjamin, have just secured a date with a hot detective,” Klaus says with a wink. Ben narrows his eyes at him.

“How did you manage that from a hospital bed?” he asks, then blinks and shakes his head. “You know what, I don’t want to know. I need plausible deniability in case this all goes to shit.”

“Your faith in my is astounding,” Klaus says cheerfully. Ben rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile on his face.

“Good job,” he says sincerely. “You got a date and helped take down a mafia!”

“The power of a good latte,” says Klaus with a wink.

**Author's Note:**

> i did absolutely no research into how hospitals, the police, or mafias work so #sorrynotsorry if this is unrealistic as shit.
> 
> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
> * Short comments
>   
> 
> * Long comments
>   
> 
> * Questions
>   
> 
> * Constructive criticism
>   
> 
> * “<3” as extra kudos
>   
> 
> * Reader-reader interaction
> 
> This author replies to comments.
> 
> Note: If you don't want a reply for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with "whisper" and I will appreciate it but not respond!


End file.
